Cape Cod lobstermen are trying to fend off state and federal regulations that they say could put them out of business in an effort that an attorney describes as a “misguided push for uniformity.”

Beginning July 1, lobstermen will face strict rules when harvesting certain female lobsters in state and federal waters around outer Cape Cod, extending from Chatham to Provincetown’s Race Point, including a part of upper Cape Cod Bay.

The Outer Cape Lobstermen’s Association, a group of roughly 70 Massachusetts-licensed lobster trap fishers, is fighting back against the state Division of Marine Fisheries and the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, reopening a decades-old federal complaint.

The dispute will be heard in a status conference scheduled for Monday in Boston federal court.

Lobstermen in the Outer Cape Cod Conservation Management Area have been allowed to catch so-called V-notched lobsters under a 2000 settlement, but the rules set to go into effect next week will essentially ban that fishing, according to an attorney for the association.

In 2000, the association and the Commonwealth established a “regulatory regime” for outer Cape Cod distinct from other lobster conservation management areas in the state.

The settlement permitted lobstermen in the region to fish for most V-notched lobsters in exchange for stricter gauge size requirements.

Attorney Samuel Blatchley has said that the framework “has proven effective in conserving lobster stocks while supporting the livelihoods of OCC fishermen.” State fishery officials, though, are pulling back and implementing a “v-notch possession rule of 1/8” depth with or without setal hairs” in the outer Cape Cod waters.

Fishery officials look at V-notching as a conservation practice, with “harvesters cutting a notch into a specific tail flipper of an egg-bearing lobster. … all harvesters must return that lobster to the sea when recaptured.”

The state Division of Marine Fisheries says that the Outer Cape Cod conservation management area has “disparate rules for state-only permit holders and federal permit holders, and this action brings the rules affecting state-only permit holders in line with the current rules for federal permit holders.”

The Outer Cape Lobstermen’s Association is seeking a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and administrative stay from federal court to halt the “illegal and devastating regulation before it takes effect” next week and to “preserve the status quo pending judicial review.”

In a memorandum filed in support of the group’s request, Blatchley described the updated V-notch possession rule as “not appropriate fishery management.”

“This regulation,” Blatchley wrote in the memorandum submitted on Friday, “is driven not for conservation needs but by a misguided push for uniformity, violates federal law, unconstitutionally commandeers state authority, and imperils the economic survival of the Plaintiff’s members.”

Brendan Adams, the president of the Outer Cape Lobstermen’s Association, stated in a declaration submitted to federal court on Friday that based on the group’s calculations, “members will suffer a 25% reduction in their catch if the prohibition takes effect and is enforced.”

“This will cause our members severe economic hardship,” Adams stated, “likely putting many out of business with a corresponding reduction in dues from those members.”

State fishery officials say the V-notch possession rule on the Cape is not the only regulatory change that lobstermen will face across the Bay State this year.

The Division of Marine Fisheries is also adjusting “minimum and maximum carapace size standards … and minimum escape vent sizes for traps.”

It states the changes are meant to comply with federal law.

In a small business impact statement, the agency stated that it estimates “approximately 1,100 small businesses may be impacted by this proposed regulation,” which it said “alone will not encourage or discourage the formation of new businesses.”

“These addenda were developed to increase the spawning stock biomass of the Gulf of Maine/Georges Bank lobster stock by proactively implementing measures in response to declining recruitment trends,” the Division of Marine Fisheries has stated, “and an anticipated decline in stock abundance driven primarily by environmental factors.

Blatchley and Adams, in documents filed with the court, are pointing to how Philip Coates, the then-director of the Division of Marine Fisheries, told the Cape Cod Times in 2000 that he wasn’t confident that V-notching was a productive conservation measure.

“(W)e’re not going to save the lobster resource with V-notching and a maximum gauge,” Coates said at the time of the settlement. “In my heart, I know the Outer Cape lobstermen are correct.”